


Discovery

by FlirtyFroggy



Series: What You Want [6]
Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlirtyFroggy/pseuds/FlirtyFroggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You have got to be kidding me,” he hissed in David’s ear as they headed towards the baseline to warm up. David gave him a puzzled frown in response, so Feli inclined his head back towards Rafa on the other side of the court and waited for David to grasp his meaning. It didn’t take long. Someone who didn’t know him well would have been fooled by David’s blank look of incomprehension, but Feli did know him well, though apparently not quite as well as he thought. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”</i>
</p><p>Montreal 2013, first round doubles: Rafael Nadal and Pablo Andujar vs David Ferrer and Feliciano Lopez.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't able to watch the match so I've just made it up, except for the score and Feli nearly taking out a ball kid. Those actually happened.
> 
> Sequel to [Lucky](http://archiveofourown.org/works/912377). 
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and is not meant to imply anything about any actual people or their lives. It's just for fun.

It took Feli all of three minutes to figure out what was going on. If he was being honest, it took him rather longer than that taking into account how much time he had spent with the two of them over the last few days, but once they were on court it took him three minutes. Ferru had been weirdly tense since they entered the locker room; monosyllabic with Feli and barely looking at Rafa and Pablo. Rafa had been his normal self, though he seemed to be avoiding David’s eye as much David had been avoiding his. It had all fallen into place when he saw them finally make eye contact as they all stood at the net for the coin toss: either they were about to engage in mortal combat, or they were fucking. 

Feli’s mind whirled. Nothing they had done since they all arrived in Montreal had been in any way out of the ordinary. Practice, dinner, PlayStation, more practice. There had been no meaningful looks, no lingering touches, no hushed conversations. His imagination must be running away with him. And yet he knew it wasn’t. He had known Rafa was seeing someone. It was obvious, at least to Feli. It just never occurred to him that someone might be Ferru. As for David, he was trickier and had given no clue that there was anyone in his life other than his girlfriend. Feli knew about his ‘have your cake and eat it too’ deal with Marta. He just hadn’t realised he thought of Rafa as cake. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” he hissed in David’s ear as they headed towards the baseline to warm up. David gave him a puzzled frown in response, so Feli inclined his head back towards Rafa on the other side of the court and waited for David to grasp his meaning. It didn’t take long. Someone who didn’t know him well would have been fooled by David’s blank look of incomprehension, but Feli did know him well, though apparently not quite as well as he thought. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Is this really the place to have this conversation, Feliciano? Really?” David turned away and fired a serve six feet beyond the baseline. Feli fought the urge to hit the ball at his head. Instead, he began his warm up by smashing the ball into the net post so that it ricocheted into the umpire’s chair and landed in David’s racket bag. A smattering of applause ran round the stadium and Feli bowed to the crowd as Rafa and Pablo doubled up with laughter at the other end of the court and David shook his head at him. The crowd cheered.

“I bet you couldn’t do that again,” the umpire said as he trotted over to retrieve his errant ball.

“Want me to try?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

David snorted. “It’s going to be a long match,” he muttered.

*****

It was like living in a soap opera, Pablo mused as he watched Ferru and Feli walk towards them at the change of ends, clearly bickering and pretending that they weren’t. As they drew level, Feli’s whisper was clearly audible. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“Oh, of course,” David retorted. “I should have realised this is all about you.”

“That wasn’t what I meant…” They moved out of range and Pablo couldn’t hear any more. Perhaps this was what was holding him back, he mused. Perhaps being a top Spanish tennis player didn’t actually take a strong work ethic or great movement or mental strength or the ability to grind your opponent into dust over the course of several hours or any of those things people talked about. Perhaps what you really needed was a flair for the dramatic, a tendency towards histrionics and a hair-trigger temper. In which case, Pablo was out of luck and may as well resign himself to floating around the lower reaches of the top 100 for the rest of his career.

On the plus side, if Ferru and Feli kept this up they were pretty much going to hand this thing to him and Rafa. Feli had already nearly blinded a ball kid, and Ferru had double faulted once and foot faulted twice.

He turned to Rafa, the exception to the drama rule as he was an exception to most rules, expecting to find an ally. Instead he found him watching the other two intently, apparently very interested in a conversation he couldn’t possibly hear. Pablo’s comment died on his tongue and he sat in silence until the umpire called time.

*****

“So, how long has it been going on?” Feli said, shielding his mouth with a handful of tennis balls.

“Aren’t we supposed to use this time to discuss strategy?” David said.

“Hit the ball where Rafa can’t get it. That’s the strategy. How long?” Feli pressed.

There was a long pause. “Since Madrid,” David said, and turned away to take his place at the net, leaving Feli to serve and fume. Madrid was months ago. Months. 

He threw the ball up and knew as soon as it left his hand that it had gone horribly wrong, but he went through with the serve anyway. The ball skimmed past David’s head on its way to burying itself in the net, close enough that Feli saw his hair move. Feli winced and David looked back over his shoulder and glared at him. “Sorry,” Feli called, and meant it. He may have been feeling hurt that his friends hadn’t confided in him, but he didn’t actually want to injure them. 

“Can you at least try to concentrate?” David said. “You already tried to kill a ball kid, do you really want to add to your casualty list?” Feli bit back a retort. Okay, maybe he did want to injure his friends a little bit.

*****

“You are both out of your minds. Completely out of your minds,” Pablo heard Feli say as they took their seats again, making him more glad than ever that he generally had nothing to do with these periodic flare-ups. Any situation in which Feli Lopez was the voice of reason was a situation in which Pablo wanted no part. Beside him, Rafa was doing a creditable job of pretending he wasn’t listening, but the way his eyes kept darting to the bench on the other side of the umpire’s chair gave him away. Pablo wondered if he was the other person Feli referred to then mentally slapped himself. What the hell did it matter? It didn’t seem to be affecting him on court, he was as focussed as ever. Pablo needed to do the same, not get bogged down in the trials and tribulations that seemed to beset the others on a regular basis.

He didn’t know how they’d done it, but somehow David and Feli had managed to win the first set. Actually, he did know. They’d done it by hammering the ball at him and leaving Rafa with little to do. Which was fair enough, he supposed, but still rankled. The fact that it had been so effective despite the fact that their heads were clearly not in this match was quite galling. For them, and for Rafa, this was basically practice and a way to get some match play in before their first singles matches. It was those things for Pablo too, but it was also a way to earn some much needed extra cash. A decent run here with Rafa could do wonders for his bank balance, but for now he’d settle for winning this match.

“Hey,” Rafa said, leaning into him. “You’re better than this, okay? They’re targeting you because they know you’re nervous.”

Pablo laughed. “They’re targeting me because I’m not you.”

Rafa shrugged. “Perhaps. But you’re better than you’ve been playing today, and right now you’re certainly better than those two idiots.” He gestured towards Feli and Ferru, a fond smile belying his disparaging words. Pablo nodded. He may not be in their league, but if he couldn’t take advantage of the fact that his opponents appeared to be operating with only half a brain between them then he really had no business being a professional tennis player at all.

*****

Feli knew he should be concentrating on the match and not on his friends’ sex lives, but he couldn’t help it. Every time he resolved to put it aside a new thought would occur to him and he felt compelled to voice it. He kept going back to the fact that their behaviour had been normal until the run-up to the match, and they hadn’t really given themselves away until they were actually on court.

“So, is it when you play each other, then?” A tennis court could be very intimate, as Feli well knew. Two people locked in competition, focussed entirely on one another, sometimes for hours at a time. 

“Feli, are you aware we are down three-one in this set?” 

“Yes. Is it when you play each other?”

David gave a long-suffering sigh. “That’s how it started, yes.”

“But it’s more than that now?”

“Yes.”

“So, is this like foreplay for you two? It’s kind of weird dragging me and Pablo into it.” David’s only response to that was a glare that could have melted glass. “How did it even happen? I mean, it’s not like Rafa would have been drinking during the tournament.” It was meant to be a joke, but Feli had rarely been noted for his good judgement.

“Because obviously Rafa would have to be drunk to want me,” David snapped. “Just because he never gave you a second glance, Feliciano, doesn’t mean that’s true of everyone.”

And that was how Feli knew he’d finally gone too far.

*****

They’d just sort of… imploded. Pablo had been playing much better and was quite pleased with himself, and he and Rafa had been up a break. It was good but it was nothing spectacular. Ferru and Feli had been hanging in there, despite their obvious distraction. Then there’d been a heated discussion at the start of the fifth game, David’s serve had deserted him completely and it had all gone downhill from there. Pablo and Rafa had run away with the set, winning it six-one. While this was great from a winning the match point of view, it was also rather worrying. Something was clearly wrong on the other side of the net. 

Something was also wrong on Pablo’s side of the net. It was a good thing he had started playing better because Rafa had switched off about the same time David did. They got away with it because Rafa’s worst day was still better than most people’s best, and because David and Feli were playing even worse. It was now clear that whatever was going on was between the three of them and not just David and Feli. Pablo was beginning to feel like the only actor on the stage who hadn’t been given the script. 

*****

David’s anger hadn’t lasted long; it rarely did. Even so, Feli was resolved to behave himself, at least for the rest of the match. David’s jab hadn’t been particularly hurtful in itself – Feli’s brief crush on Rafa had been at most a passing fancy, and it had been years ago – but he felt bad that he’d driven him to make it. They could rag on each other’s football skills and PlayStation skills and flirting skills all day, but personal jibes like that were off-limits by mutual unspoken agreement. This thing between David and Rafa must be more serious than he had thought. That was worrying in itself. A casual fling could strain their friendship and make things awkward, but that would pass. A serious relationship, though. Feli could only see that ending, and ending badly.

He wrenched his thoughts back to the present moment and Rafa’s serve. Too late. The ball sprang up off the baseline almost before he’d had time to react. Fuck. Nine-ten in the tie-break. He grimaced apologetically at Ferru, who shrugged as if to say ‘what can you do?’

Three more points and it was all over. They’d made a decent showing of the final set but it hadn’t been enough. Feli knew it was mostly his fault. Rafa and David exchanged only the briefest of glances as they all shook hands, but it was filled with so much heat that Feli was surprised they didn’t set fire to the net. He wondered if he was the only one who could see it.

“You know that was pretty much your fault, don’t you?” David was smiling as they sat down to sort out their bags, all the tension gone now that the match was over. Feli watched him fiddle with his god-awful watch and wondered if it was too soon for another annoying personal question. He leaned over and whispered in David’s ear.

“Did you have sex in the locker room in Madrid?”

David looked at him through narrowed eyes as he stuffed his towel into his bag. “Do you even see the cameras and microphones around this place?”

“No-one can hear me. That’s the point of whispering. Did you?”

“No.”

“But it started out as a post-match thing, right?”

“Oh my god. If I tell you will you shut up?”

“Sure.”

David looked sceptical but apparently decided it was worth a shot. “Fine. He kissed me in the locker room in Madrid, I gave him a blowjob in the locker room in Rome, we spent the night together at his hotel after the Roland Garros final. Happy now?” 

Happy was not the word Feli would use, but he decided to err on the side of David not being angry with him and didn’t press the issue.

They lifted their racket bags and walked slowly towards the exit. Somewhere behind them he could hear Rafa giving an interview in English. Feli estimated he had about thirty seconds to ask one last question before they reached the fans waiting for autographs. “Did you really give him a blowjob in the locker room in Rome?”

David laughed. “Shocked, Feliciano?”

“A little. That’s quite spectacularly stupid, you know.”

“More like something you would do, you mean?”

“Well, yes.”

David laughed again, his eyes full of mischief. They had almost reached the crowd of autograph hunters. “Do you want to hear something else shocking?” Feli nodded, wondering where this was going. David came to a halt, stopping Feli with a hand on his arm. He leaned up to whisper in his ear. “This _was_ foreplay. Sorry about that. But don’t worry, I really wasn’t thinking about you or Pablo. Didn’t drag you into anything.” He turned and walked away, leaving Feli to stare after him wondering if he really knew his friends at all.


End file.
